CHANDIGARH: BRIGadier (Retd) Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, the hero of the famous Battle of Longewala who was decorated with the Maha Vir Chakra for gallantry in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, died at a local hospital on Saturday morning after a battle with cancer.
He was admitted to the Fortis Hospital in Mohali.
His heroic feat of this teetotaller and vegetarian was portrayed on the big screen by Sunny Deol in filmmaker JP Dutta’s magnum opus ‘Border’. The ‘Battle of Longewala’ is one of the army’s most celebrated campaigns that was considered a turning point in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He was a major in the army during that war.
A third-generation soldier, Chandpuri was born at Montgomery in the united Punjab of undivided India in 1940. His family then moved to their native village, Chandpur Rurki, in Balachaur and he passed out from Government College, Hoshiarpur. in 1962. He was commissioned into the 23rd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment in 1963 and took part in the 1965 Indo-Pak war. He also served in the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) at Gaza in Egypt.
He was awarded the second highest gallantry award for his role at Longewala, a remote outpost at Jaisalmer where he led a small group of over a 100 soldiers, who fought back 2000 Pakistan army soldiers in 1971.